Autolisp vs Visuallisp vs VBA vs Dynamic Blocks

I am currently faced with a choice which I am hoping to get some guidence from at the forum. I am involved with bridge drafting. There seems to be loads of routines and dynamic blocks available for Architects, Mechanical, civil etc, but hardly anything for bridge drafting. I want to develop some blocks / routines specific for bridges and preferably in the AutoCAD 3D environment. Before I go and reinvent the wheel, can anyone point me to some bridge drafting info (blocks / lisp routines). Should I opt to go through the torture of learning to program or customise, which programing route is recommended. I was told that dynamic blocks has limits going the 3D route. That leaves me with Autolisp, visuallisp and vba. Any comments will be appreciated.

When you work in that sort of enviroment, you need to use a combination of all really.

 

It all depends on what excatly you want to achive.

Some things are simple enought to do with Dynamic blocks,

Or even make use of autocads Solid Memory , (crtl + click, will allow you to move items in a solid about such as extrustions subtraction, Most things really)

 

Then other things are just so much simply done with lisps.

 

I belive its hard to Pin point a direcly what should be used where, its all depended on you standards, goals and limitations. Except one, dont waste your time with Vba, its a dead languge. Vba.net if you want that path,

Thanks for the reply flowerrobot.

It basically boils down to filling in a few parameters in a dialogue box and drawing up a 3D object such as bridge abutments or precast concrete beams. The precast concrete beams is a battle in itself as they are not in a straight line. It's a parabola. Imagine a I-beam section (concrete) extruded along a parabolic line. The parabolic arc will be very flat. Say a beam spans 25m, the parabolic arc may be 50mm or so. Geometrically bridges are very complex and drafting is never simple. I wonder if I am not trying to bite of more than I can chew.

Say a beam spans 25m, the parabolic arc may be 50mm or so..I wonder if I am not trying to bite of more than I can chew.

Things like this, are quite easy to do in lisp, once you get the hang of things, All tasks are complex till you break them into segments, Once you break them down. and focus on 1 item at a time, things become alot easyer

 

flower